In the wake of the storm, on Friday morning the entire park was littered with branches and debris. An initial look at the area showed that at least six of the park's smaller trees had been uprooted while many others were badly damaged by the gales that blasted through the town centre throughout Thursday.

While the park was badly damaged and in need of a major clean-up, the storm's impact on the park and surrounding buildings could have been much worse had the council not taken action recently to remove dead and dying trees.

In October Tralee Town Council announced that it had no option but to cut down six of the oldest, largest and most impressive trees in the park including the towering beech that towered over the picturesque Rose Garden. The six trees, some of which had stood in the heart of the park for up to 150 years, had died or become so diseased and damaged that they posed a risk to the public and could have spread deadly infections to the many other trees dotted around the park.

At the time Council engineers said the trees posed a significant public safety risk as a major storm, such as the one which struck the town last week, could easily have blown them down, potentially causing massive damage to the park and neighbouring buildings.

Thankfully work to cut down the trees was completed by early December preventing potentially catastrophic damage to the park and surrounding areas.